Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (38 page)

DOMIN: Perhaps we’re only phantoms!

FABRY: Stop, Harry. We haven’t much time! Dr. Gall!

DOMIN: Fabry, Fabry, how your forehead bleeds, where the shot pierced it!

FABRY: Be silent! Dr. Gall, you admit changing the way of making the Robots?

DR. GALL: Yes.

FABRY: Were you aware of what might be the consequences of your experiment?

DR. GALL: I was bound to reckon with such a possibility.

HELENA enters the drawing room from left.

FABRY: Why did you do it, then?

DR. GALL: For my own satisfaction. The experiment was my own.

HELENA: That’s not true, Dr. Gall!

FABRY: Madame Helena!

DOMIN: Helena, you? Let’s look at you. Oh, it’s terrible to be dead.

HELENA: Stop, Harry.

DOMIN: No, no, embrace me. Helena, don’t leave me now. You are life itself.

HELENA: No, dear, I won’t leave you. But I must tell them. Dr. Gall is not guilty.

DOMIN: Excuse me, Gall was under certain obligations.

HELENA: No, Harry. He did it because I wanted it. Tell them, Gall, how many years ago did I ask you to—?

DR. GALL: I did it on my own responsibility.

HELENA: Don’t believe him, Harry. I asked him to give the Robots souls.

DOMIN: This has nothing to do with the soul.

HELENA: That’s what he said. He said that he could change only a physiological—a physiological—

HALLEMEIER: A physiological correlate?

HELENA: Yes. But it meant so much to me that he should do even that.

DOMIN: Why?

HELENA: I thought that if they were more like us they would understand us better. That they couldn’t hate us if they were only a little more human.

DOMIN: Nobody can hate man more than man.

HELENA: Oh, don’t speak like that, Harry. It was so terrible, this cruel strangeness between us and them. That’s why I asked Gall to change the Robots. I swear to you that he didn’t want to.

DOMIN: But he did it.

HELENA: Because I asked him.

DR. GALL: I did it for myself as an experiment.

HELENA: No, Dr. Gall! I knew you wouldn’t refuse me.

DOMIN: Why?

HELENA: You know, Harry.

DOMIN: Yes, because he’s in love with you—like all of them.

Pause.

HALLEMEIER: Good God! They’re sprouting up out of the earth! Why, perhaps these very walls will change into Robots.

BUSMAN: Gall, when did you actually start these tricks of yours?

DR. GALL: Three years ago.

BUSMAN: Aha! And on how many Robots altogether did you carry out your improvements?

DR. GALL: A few hundred of them.

BUSMAN: Ah! That means for every million of the good old Robots there’s only one of Gall’s improved pattern.

DOMIN: What of it?

BUSMAN: That it’s practically of no consequence whatever.

FABRY: Busman’s right!

BUSMAN: I should think so, my boy! But do you know what is to blame for all this lovely mess?

FABRY: What?

BUSMAN: The number. Upon my soul we might have known that some day or other the Robots would be stronger than human beings, and that this was bound to happen, and we were doing all we could to bring it about as soon as possible. You, Domin, you, Fabry, myself—

DOMIN: Are you accusing us?

BUSMAN: Oh, do you suppose the management controls the output? It’s the demand that controls the output.

HELENA: And is it for that we must perish?

BUSMAN: That’s a nasty word, Madame Helena. We don’t want to perish. I don’t, anyhow.

DOMIN: No. What do you want to do?

BUSMAN: I want to get out of this, that’s all.

DOMIN: Oh, stop it, Busman.

BUSMAN: Seriously, Harry, I think we might try it.

DOMIN: How?

BUSMAN: By fair means. I do everything by fair means. Give me a free hand and I’ll negotiate with the Robots.

DOMIN: By fair means?

BUSMAN: Of course. For instance, I’ll say to them: “Worthy and worshipful Robots, you have everything! You have intellect, you have power, you have firearms. But we have just one interesting screed, a dirty old yellow scrap of paper—”

DOMIN: Rossum’s manuscript?

BUSMAN: Yes. “And that,” I’ll tell them, “contains an account of your illustrious origin, the noble process of your manufacture,” and so on. “Worthy Robots, without this scribble on that paper you will not be able to produce a single new colleague. In another twenty years there will not be one living specimen of a Robot that you could exhibit in a menagerie. My esteemed friends, that would be a great blow to you, but if you will let all of us human beings on Rossum’s Island go on board that ship we will deliver the factory and the secret of the process to you in return. You allow us to get away and we allow you to manufacture yourselves. Worthy Robots, that is a fair deal. Something for something.” That’s what I’d say to them, my boys.

DOMIN: Busman, do you think we’d sell the manuscript?

BUSMAN: Yes, I do. If not in a friendly way, then—Either we sell it or they’ll find it. Just as you like.

DOMIN: Busman, we can destroy Rossum’s manuscript.

BUSMAN: Then we destroy everything…not only the manuscript, but ourselves. Do as you think fit.

DOMIN: There are over thirty of us on this island. Are we to sell the secret and save that many human souls, at the risk of enslaving mankind…?

BUSMAN: Why, you’re mad? Who’d sell the whole manuscript?

DOMIN: Busman, no cheating!

BUSMAN: Well then, sell; but afterward—

DOMIN: Well?

BUSMAN: Let’s suppose this happens: When we’re on board the Ultimus I’ll stop up my ears with cotton wool, lie down somewhere in the hold, and you’ll train the guns on the factory, and blow it to smithereens, and with it Rossum’s secret.

FABRY: No!

DOMIN: Busman, you’re no gentleman. If we sell, then it will be a straight sale.

BUSMAN: It’s in the interest of humanity to—

DOMIN: It’s in the interest of humanity to keep our word.

HALLEMEIER: Oh, come, what rubbish.

DOMIN: This is a fearful decision. We are selling the destiny of mankind. Are we to sell or destroy? Fabry?

FABRY: Sell.

DOMIN: Gall?

DR. GALL: Sell.

DOMIN: Hallemeier?

HALLEMEIER: Sell, of course!

DOMIN: Alquist?

ALQUIST: As God wills.

DOMIN: Very well. It shall be as you wish, gentlemen.

HELENA: Harry, you’re not asking me.

DOMIN: No, child. Don’t you worry about it.

FABRY: Who’ll do the negotiating?

BUSMAN: I will.

DOMIN: Wait till I bring the manuscript.

He goes into room at right.

HELENA: Harry, don’t go!

Pause. HELENA sinks into a chair.

FABRY: (looking out of window)

Oh, to escape you; you matter in revolt; oh, to preserve human life, if only upon a single vessel—

DR. GALL: Don’t be afraid, Madame Helena. We’ll sail far away from here; we’ll begin life all over again—

HELENA: Oh, Gall, don’t speak.

FABRY: It isn’t too late. It will be a little State with one ship. Alquist will build us a house and you shall rule over us.

HALLEMEIER: Madame Helena, Fabry’s right.

HELENA: (breaking down)

Oh, stop! Stop!

BUSMAN: Good! I don’t mind beginning all over again. That suits me right down to the ground.

FABRY: And this little State of ours could be the centre of future life. A place of refuge where we could gather strength. Why, in a few hundred years we could conquer the world again.

ALQUIST: You believe that even today?

FABRY: Yes, even today!

BUSMAN: Amen. You see, Madame Helena, we’re not so badly off.

DOMIN storms into the room.

DOMIN: (hoarsely)

Where’s old Rossum’s manuscript?

BUSMAN: In your strong-box, of course.

DOMIN: Someone—has—stolen it!

DR. GALL: Impossible.

DOMIN: Who has stolen it?

HELENA: (standing up)

I did.

DOMIN: Where did you put it?

HELENA: Harry, I’ll tell you everything. Only forgive me.

DOMIN: Where did you put it?

HELENA: This morning—I burnt—the two copies.

DOMIN: Burnt them? Where? In the fireplace?

HELENA: (throwing herself on her knees)

For heaven’s sake, Harry.

DOMIN:
(going to fireplace)

Nothing, nothing but ashes. Wait, what’s this?

(Picks out a charred piece of paper and reads)

“By adding—”

DR. GALL: Let’s see. “By adding biogen to—” That’s all.

DOMIN: Is that part of it?

DR. GALL: Yes.

BUSMAN: God in heaven!

DOMIN: Then we’re done for. Get up, Helena.

HELENA: When you’ve forgiven me.

DOMIN: Get up, child, I can’t bear—

FABRY:
(lifting her up)

Please don’t torture us.

HELENA: Harry, what have I done?

FABRY: Don’t tremble so, Madame Helena.

DOMIN: Gall, couldn’t you draw up Rossum’s formula from memory?

DR. GALL: It’s out of the question. It’s extremely complicated.

DOMIN: Try. All our lives depend upon it.

DR. GALL: Without experiments it’s impossible.

DOMIN: And with experiments?

DR. GALL: It might take years. Besides, I’m not old Rossum.

BUSMAN: God in heaven! God in heaven!

DOMIN: So, then, this was the greatest triumph of the human intellect. These ashes.

HELENA: Harry, what have I done?

DOMIN: Why did you burn it?

HELENA: I have destroyed you.

BUSMAN: God in heaven!

DOMIN: Helena, why did you do it, dear?

HELENA: I wanted all of us to go away. I wanted to put an end to the factory and everything. It was so awful.

DOMIN: What was awful?

HELENA: That no more children were being born. Because human beings were not indeed to do the work of the world, that’s why—

DOMIN: Is that what you were thinking of? Well, perhaps in your own way you were right.

BUSMAN: Wait a bit. Good God, what a fool I am, not to have thought of it before!

HALLEMEIER: What?

BUSMAN: Five hundred and twenty millions in bank-notes and checks. Half a billion in our safe, they’ll sell for half a billion—for half a billion they’ll—

DR. GALL: Are you mad, Busman?

BUSMAN: I may not be a gentleman, but for half a billion—

DOMIN: Where are you going?

BUSMAN: Leave me alone, leave me alone! Good God, for half a billion anything can be bought.

He rushes from the room through the outer door.

FABRY: They stand there as if turned to stone, waiting. As if something dreadful could be wrought by their silence—

HALLEMEIER: The spirit of the mob.

FABRY: Yes. It hovers above them like a quivering of the air.

HELENA: (going to window)

Oh, God! Dr. Gall, this is ghastly.

FABRY: There is nothing more terrible than the mob. The one in front is their leader.

HELENA: Which one?

HALLEMEIER: Point him out.

FABRY: The one at the edge of the dock. This morning I saw him talking to the sailors in the harbor.

HELENA: Dr. Gall, that’s Radius!

DR. GALL: Yes.

DOMIN: Radius? Radius?

HALLEMEIER: Could you get him from here, Fabry?

FABRY: I hope so.

HALLEMEIER: Try it, then.

FABRY: Good.

Draws his revolver and takes aim.

HELENA: Fabry, don’t shoot him.

FABRY: He’s their leader.